Landships II

Centurion · Legend

First encounter

JamesH · Major

The whole business of reactions to the Tanks is intriguing. British propaganda claims that the Germans invariably panicked and fled or surrendered in droves at the sight of a Tank; the truth seems to be that the Germans, having been exposed for two years to all the innovations of modern warfare, were initially taken aback but soon took the Tanks in their stride and resisted attacks strenuously. A veteran who appears in the BBC series The Great War says that both sides stuck their heads above the parapet and gawped at the earliest Tanks in astonishment. In his book Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine Patrick Wright claims that British troops greeted them with a sort of nervous amusement, to the point of actually finding them a distraction from the serious business of fighting.

I haven't been able to find any first-hand German accounts of Panzerschreck, but it seems that it was not a uniquely German condition. Allied troops were confounded when confronted by A7Vs and Beutepanzers in 1918 and similarly apt to surrender or flee. It's reported that Germans surrendered en masse to Tanks that were out of ammunition, unserviceable or immobilized, or, according to one account, a not very convincing dummy, but I think this must have had more to do with good sense than panic. If the situation is hopeless then surrender or retreat might well be the most sensible action. Towards the end of the War the question of morale must also be considered. Dispirited Germans might well have welcomed any expedient which got them out of the fighting, and Allied Tanks must have been a powerful symbol of the hopelessness of the German cause and the futility of further resistance. I suspect that in the last stages of the War the most common reaction to the Tank was not panic but despondency.

mad zeppelin · Commander in Chief

"Tank fright" was not so much an affair of the troops who reacted to tanks with those means at hand, but of the German OHL and Ludendorff. There are three serious outbreaks of "tank fright" recorded with the German army: Arras and Cambrai in 1917, and Amiens 1918 - each connected to a panicking Ludendorff - and not so much with the troops panicking. If they had no means to counter the tanks the troops would run away or surrender, if provided the means they would stay and fight it out. There was no panic with the troops at Arras, neither at Cambrai - they escaped or perished but "tank fright" is not recorded with them. There also was no "tank fright" with the troops at Amiens, they surrendered or perished, but this time the rear echelons panicked (but panicking rear echelons also happened in 1914 without any tanks, has more to do with the enemy getting close). But apart from Cambrai and Amiens where the tanks appeared in overwhelming numbers, the German reaction to fewer tanks usually was to fight it out, separate the infantry from the tanks, and leave the tanks to the heavy weapons. But this was of course also a matter of familiarization, troops coming in from the eastern front would react more strongly to western front conditions, including tanks, than those already there for months or years. - See the 77th ResDiv at Cachy when attacked by the British Whippets on 24th April, 1918. Their reaction provoked only snears of disgust from the neighbouring 4th Garde-Division.

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

One "blue-on-blue" incident involving tanks on Sept. 15, 1916 is recorded in the British Official History. C.22, commanded by Basil Henriques, is reported to have fired on the 9th Norfolks (6 Div.) while crossing their lines on it's approach to the Quadrilateral. The firing was supposedly halted by the intervention of a Norfolks officer, Capt. Crosse. The two tanks which were to have supported C.22 had already broken down. According to Trevor Pidgeon, there is some doubt as to whether the incident actually occurred.

Isolated tanks could occasionally cause mass surrenders. On Sept. 25, 1916, D.4, commanded by 2/Lt. Storey, supported by a small bombing party, captured Gird Trench near Gueudecourt, which had resisted a brigade strength infantry attack on the previous day. The garrison of about 300 were driven down the trench ahead of the tank towards the infantry, who took them prisoner. On Nov. 14, 1916, during the battle of Beaumont-Hamel, two tanks, although ditched in the German front-line trench, compelled the surrender of its 400 man garrison, rounded up by their crews armed with revolvers. During the Second Battle of Gaza, a single tank, HMLS Nutty, supported by about 50 Australian and British troops provoked the flight of the 500 man garrison of the Tank Redoubt.

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

Chaney may be describing an incident which occurred in High Wood on Sept. 15. The III Corps commander, Gen. Pulteney, disregarded the advice of the HSMGC and 47 Div. officers, and ordered the tanks to advance directly through the wood. Full of shattered stumps from two month's bombardment, the wood was a desolate, half-mile wide tank trap. Terry Norman describes the result in "The Hell They Called High Wood": "..One tank - Robinson's (D22)- actually fired several shots from its 6-pdr guns before halting close to the Post Office Rifle's Battalion Headquarters. Thereupon, Robinson alighted to ask the way to the crater. On being told, he climbed back into his tank and drove off. Another tank, according to the Civil Service Rifles, nearly smashed up their headquarters. The tank stopped and its commander, going into the battalion headquarters, asked the CO, Lt-Colonel H.V. Warrender, where High Wood was...Warrender's exasperated reply went unrecorded...Robinson's tank started out on the right course, but the tree stumps proved too much for it. The tank careered off-course, turned due east and came out of the south-eastern side (of the wood) to ditch in a British front-line trench..after firing on some unfortunate Londoners (City of London Rifles) who happened to be near it. A heated altercation between an infuriated company commander and Robinson immediately broke out."

The tank seen in the first attachment may be D22 ditched in Worcester Trench, but the identity is open to question. The few denuded trunks seen on the horizon in the second photo are the remains of High Wood on Sept. 15 - which makes the officer's question about the location of the wood more understandable.